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CNBC powerlunch asking if Phama Drug adds should be banned to cut
Prescription pill costs... Healthcare costs ? I agree, but you can't legally... Even if they passed something to stop the ADS !, it would be squashed by lobbyists. This is the huge problem moving forward with healthcare...
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If you believe that brand-name prescription drug prices are out of control, you're probably not alone. Prescription drug costs have been soaring at a pace that's far beyond the rate of inflation for years, and the pattern has shown few signs of slowing. What's become a cash cow for drugmakers and their investors has become a major financial drain for insurance companies and patients who may need life-saving medicines.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/04/23/the-scariest-prescription-drug-price-chart-youll-e.aspx
I wonder who changed that....
Your homework assignment: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2690298/
Great article. I disagree with one point though. The insurance companies are complicit and hardly experiencing any "financial drain" because of increased drug prices. They pass their costs along to their customers (i.e. the public) and are extremely effective and efficient in doing so -- their entire business in fact depends on it and they do it quite well....as a glance at any of the major one's quarterly results, along with a chart health insurance stock prices, will tell you in no uncertain terms.
Does these companies look like like they are being financially drained?
One thing is for sure though, the insurance industry doesn't generate the free cash that the pharma industry does where margins are much wider.
They both, however, make for some very well compensated corporate officers who lobby Washington hard and get results (see my prior post's article on this topic), and here we are....at the edge of a political debate I will not engage in.
Year
If I have to fill a prescription, I have no idea what the cost is or what my carrier pays for the drug. Health insurers have for, for the most part, been allowed to increase their premiums at will which seems to preclude any effort control their cost.
The question, to me, is when will someone stand up for consumers?
And will they be labeled a communist or a socialist for doing what the rest of the globe has done?
You know, the rest of the world that not only lives longer (and happier) lives, but also does so with lower healthcare costs.
Call me Karl, I suppose. :shrug
I agree with you, but then I remember who consumers elected President and I feel less optimistic about Americans ability to make decisions, Karl. :grin
:grin
It is ridiculous to suggest that an enterprise should not be allowed to advertise. Above and beyond that it is their product. Not yours , not mine and not the patient who's life may depend on it. They should be alowed to charge whatever the market will support. If you wish for there to be lower prices then provide an environment that allows and promotes competition. The market pressures applied when artificial price floors and ceilings are removed absent government interference will settle the rest.
"Today is MINE"
WOW.... and when 90% of diabetic's can't afford their insulin ? Just let them die ? After all, 10% will be able to afford it and in many cases Patents protect drugs to one supplier (no generic)... Thus, they can price people out of the market ? This is why other countries established one payor systems years ago, to control costs.
It isn't food, gold, a car... We are talking about people living or dying via their income... You do get that don't you ?
If someone invents a cure for Cancer tomorrow, Patents it and put it on the shelf for 100K a shot, and this shot will cure the patient. Do they have the right to run ADS on TV, promote it and then withhold it from dying patients because it is theirs ?
To be clear, I am sure everyone here felt the same way 40 years ago, maybe even in 2000 and does with almost every other product. We are talking about life or death at an extreme cost now, with 20% having no coverage in 5 years and 60 - 80% not being able to afford many things in 10 years. Sure isn't your grandmothers medicine... That was basically all free...
YES,,, it is theirs.
"Today is MINE"
:banana
"Today is MINE"
I got no argument for your death money monopolizing squad. Good luck and hope you don't need it, hope I don't either... What a great country...
I don't golf. Fish a bunch
"Today is MINE"
The solution has nothing whatsoever to do with advertising. It has to do with price controls.
Market pressures haven't worked to stem the tide of costs increase thusfar, despite (alleged) efforts of both parties and an entire industry (e.g. insurance) to reign them in, so what on Earth makes you think that an even more free market will suddenly course correct?
Except, perhaps, a lack of knowledge of economics, history, and the way the rest of the world works, and a blind confidence in the Xanadu called the free market or Nirvana called free competition. Even though no such markets have ever existed on Earth since the before the Dark Ages, but when we get close financial calamity follows along a decade or so later -- that must be the ticket!
Maybe you should stick to farming and fishing. This whole public policy thing doesn't seem to suit you.
Do not give a **** about the rest of the world or how they do it. The fact that you think the pharmaceutical industry or healthcare in general is or has been a free open market in decades suggests you are the one afflicted with ignorance. The cumbersome buracracy that the federal government has inflicted upon both industries has all but eliminated any resemblance to an open free market.
"Today is MINE"
"Today is MINE"
What are you going to do or say... I know you were around here 10 years ago when these type of things were not discussed at all, really, it was still doing OK, people could get what they needed. Now we have that kind of opinion to deal with and it only take one guy to stand alongside POTUS and say "you're the man" There he is... Money money...
You can't have competition when the patent laws allow 20 years from the day the formula is patented. Take away the patent laws and pharmaceutical companies won't invest as much in research for new drugs. The only thing that lowers drug costs is generics and the brand name guys hate them since they ruin profits.
Do you suggest we abandon the patent laws?
Former Mini Mart Magnate
I am just here for my amusement.
I wss discussing this subject with my family's physician a couple of years ago. He pointed out that a huge portion of the FDAs regulator effort is spent on picking winners and losers instead of which product is actually safe. Once a company creates a new product the FDA all but locks out competing products that may often solve the same problem and create the type of competition we need. . He added that the time from development to market could usually be cut many times over but the buracracy built around the process is so cumbersome it is nearly stagnant.
"Today is MINE"
They don't "lock out" competing products. The law does not allow a second firm to significantly copy a company's patented compound. Companies are more than welcome, and encouraged, to R&D and test their own compounds. There are many examples of competing drugs in the same disease state: Diabetes, Depression, Schizophrenia, arthritis, Hep C, Crohn's, many cancers and autoimmune diseases, asthma, pulmonary disease, cardiovascular disease.
One more point. While patent protection is for 20 years, that is from point of invention. So while a new TV or engine might get nearly that, drugs do not. The patent is filed at compound identification stage, and it can take anywhere from 5-8 years to get the compound through testing, the FDA and to market. So in many cases it has a market life well below 20 years.
So you don't agree with the open market of supply and demand? Should the same be true of other products such as autos, toothpaste, TVs, Beer?
The first part is true, since the patent laws require the FDA to protect the first product to the market. Unless the primary drug and formulation is completely different, patent laws protect the drug maker. Many times the drug company sues in court to keep competition out of the market if the product is similar. Again, it comes down to abandoning our patent laws. Do you favor abandoning our patent laws?
Development to market is slow, but there have been issues to speeding up the process and then finding out it was harmful in some manner. It takes about 8 years to get a drug to market through all the trials. Then they have about 12 years of no competition, assuming they don't file for additional patents to lengthen the time.
Loss of the patent casts the drug company billions. Lipitor was a $5 billion dollar product for Pfizer in 2011. Now the profits from the drug are only $900,000 a year due to the patent expiration.
Former Mini Mart Magnate
I am just here for my amusement.
Exactly, it is all about Money and the biotechs want to be treated like an Auto company in this country because all other countries would never allow it. So they discover it here, at our schools, colleges, the professor then takes a job with a biotech and transferred for 1M to the biotech of his and the schools choosing. College scores 2%, professor gets % and biotech CEO and board score 80% on the back of taxpayer dollars thru billing medicare and medicaid, lus, when startup gets underway, they pocket millions on 401Ks (all legal BS stealing of money) but on FS we hear that it is the GOVT, FDA, etc. that is the problem... Not the free wheeling Corps., lobbyists, Venture Funds, Investment Banks, Doctors, and Hospitals.
It is the poor, the patient that eats too much, the black lady with 3 kids your honor, it is her fault, the FDA and the sick guys fault that healthcare is so costly in this country. This is preached over and over thru rich peoples money so that we don't understand the real cause and blame those behind the scam.
LIke I wrote, not a debate 20 years ago because the GREED was not as large, neither was the obesity, the need for hospitals, doctors etc. to keep everyone alive laying in a bed well past when they would have naturally died so they can BANK money.
20 -30 years ago ""most"" everyone believed in good nature, good care, and helping others. THey you get the super ego, money grubbing people that can play on the system, they take advantage of it and use all that excess money to preach to those that will buy into the BS... 'You too can do what I did" "Anyone can become a millionaire" "Someone that smokes is a drain on the system" " work hard, get ahead, in fact, work 60 hours and put your work first" "and finally, screw everyone else, care only about yourself" "It is all about you" "better carry a gun, nothing but murderers out there waiting to take you down. The irony that the poor guy robbing you has no job and can't get one defies your logic... "not my problem"
So we get what we now have as the sidewalk sign holder without rights, without healthcare, and this in turn creates the sidewalk flag waver, and as long as there is one alive to support the leaders, and the leaders have the money to pump into Flag hats, flags, etc... It wont go away, it is their life work, to tell other people how to live, what you should and could be if only you work as hard as me...
It is disgusting and about as ANTI American as it can be, yet, is being preached as pro american... All you have to do is look at today's tweets to see how much scum comes out of well dressed white guys mouths... THey are cowards, they won't stick up for what is right, but will tell others how they should live. And when pinned downed with a real question, deflect. If I don't want my son cyber bullied, I certainly should not be cyber bullying women.
It is beyond American to become one of these guys.... It really is above these guys too and they are being dragged down to a scummy level... Not intended for anyone here as in this is a person here. Just general in where many white guys are headed with their thought patterns...
I still say, the same guy here that preaches keep people out of the country, is the same guys backing "they need can to in and as many as possible to pick fruit when it was all the rage, Circa 1984 - 2008
They need to make up their mind and quit switching their CAUSE to support what their leader decides is appropriate for glamour and money.
Open market is great for everything and what we are built on. But scripts and healthcare need to be maintained and controlled... Our system worked great when there were many regulations and controls in place. When you remove them all, the greed and wealth runaway with no control. What then ? It will never end... as of right now, it is past where it belongs.